Contemporary business has embraced two technologies that allow an individual employee to be more efficient and productive. The first of these technologies is voice messaging technology. In conventional voice messaging technology, a caller first calls an intended recipient by telephone. If the recipient of the call is absent, the caller is automatically connected to the recipient's voice messaging system. This system enables the caller to record a message for the recipient-subscriber in the caller's own voice, which message is then stored in an electronic format by the system. When subscriber calls into the system, he can play back the voice message on his telephone by issuing suitable commands.
The second technology effecting modern business practices is the facsimile machine or telecopier, which enables a sender to transmit a text or visual image (collectively "data") via electronic medium to a remote location, where the text or image may be printed out. Conventional facsimile technology requires telecopy equipment at both the sending and receiving stations, the first to encode the transmittal into electronic format and the latter to decode the transmittal back to a text or visual image suitable for printing.
Voice messaging and telecopy technologies have freed the employee from his office, and have enabled the businessman to conduct a large part of his work away from his home office. By calling in to his office from a remote location, the executive can listen to voice messages. Likewise, the facsimile machine has enabled the businessman to receive text or visual images virtually anywhere in the world accessible by public telephone lines.
An evolution of facsimile technology is the ongoing development of methods and apparatus for receiving and storing in electronic format the electronic representation of a facsimile transmittal. Such systems, known generically as "Fax Mail" systems, permit an incoming telecopy transmittal to be stored on a data storage system in electronic form, for later recall by the system subscriber. In this manner, the intended recipient may, for example, call into the office from a remote location, determine that a facsimile transmittal is available for him, and then direct that the text or image stored on the system be transmitted for printout to a facsimile machine at the remote location.
An adjunct to "Fax Mail" technology is the annotation of facsimile transmittals with a voice message, wherein the voice message is recorded in the caller's own voice. Such previously known systems--"composite voice/data" message systems--contemplate that a caller will call the recipient's voice messaging system using the telephone handset found on the facsimile equipment, record a voice message concerning the impending facsimile transmission, and then send the facsimile transmission as a continuous part of the call. Thus, the resulting call is "simultaneous" in the sense that the telephone call and the facsimile transmittal are part of a single transaction. A subscriber to the system can then dial into the system from a remote location, listen to the voice portion of the message, and direct the disposition, i.e., printout or storage, of the facsimile portion.
Such simultaneous composite voice/data message systems have the inherent drawback that the sender of the facsimile transmittal must be physically present at the facsimile machine in order to record the voice portion of the message. On the other hand, if--as is typical for most large businesses--the facsimile machine is located in a mail center, it may not be possible for the sender of the facsimile to provide the desired voice annotation of the transmittal. This is because he will typically not be present when the facsimile transmittal is actually sent. While the sender could call the recipient from his desk and leave a voice message that a facsimile is being or will be sent, previously known methods and systems of voice/data processing do not enable the voice portion of the message to be matched up with its corresponding facsimile portion.
If the recipient in the above scenario receives only one voice message and one facsimile transmittal, he would have little problem in determining their relationship. If, however, several voice messages and facsimile transmittals were to be received, the recipient may have to waste a considerable amount of time determining which voice message corresponds to each of the facsimile transmittals. This problem could be especially acute, for example, where several drafts of a document are sent to the recipient within a relatively short period, for example, as in time-sensitive contract negotiations.
It would therefore be desirable to provide a method for annotating a facsimile transmittal to be stored in electronic format with a voice message, wherein the voice message and facsimile transmittal are created non-simultaneously.
It would further be desirable to provide apparatus for matching a facsimile transmittal stored in electronic format with a timewise separated voice message to form a composite voice/data message.
It would further be desirable to provide methods for printing out a facsimile transmittal from electronic storage wherein the print out includes indicia that permits the facsimile transmittal to be matched up with a voice message.